Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Boilermakers 72, Gophers 55

While I was relegated to watching Saturday's game in the suburbs at Joe Sensor's (yes, nowhere on campus has spent the money to buy ESPN Fullcourt, even a recently reopened bar that obviously has spent an inordinate amount of cash on dozens of new televisions), two of our good friends made the trip to Mackey Arena.

Scott McDonald, a Gopher fan exiled in Indianapolis, has decided to take on the somewhat unpleasant task of rehashing this ugly contest. Therefore, I'll turn it over to him to tell his story. Scott has never been one to bite his tongue, and because of the magnitude of the loss, I will publish what he sent me virtually unedited

-Grant Boelter

The Minnesota Golden Gophers remained winless in the Big Ten after a 72-55 loss to the Purdue Boilermakers, Saturday night in West Lafayette, IN. The Boilermakers were led by Marcus White’s 17 points and Adam Boone’s 11 points paced the Gophers. The Gophers are now alone in the cellar in the Big Ten standings with an 0-3 record. This was very disappointing for me because Ben Butzow and I witnessed it first hand at Mackey Arena. It was the first Gophers game I have seen all year and I was extremely pissed.

This game was clearly a game of two of the worst teams in the Big Ten. There were stretches in the game where it looked like an eighth grade girls' game. The Gophers looked good coming out of the gate and surprisingly jumped to a quick 9-2 lead. A fiery defense caused 17 turnovers on the night, but that was not enough as the Gophers continued to have very long dry spells on the offensive end. The Gophers were able to hit some open threes and capitalize on some turnovers in the first half. They went into halftime knotted up at 33 a piece.

The second half was a different story. The Gophers shot a disgusting 9 percent from 3-point land and were out-rebounded 26-12. The Gophers came out and hung tough for the first 10 minutes. Then they hit the inevitable Gopher Road Wall and were stuck on 47 points for nearly six minutes in the second half. When all was said and done the Gophers were outscored 26-8 in the last ten minutes of the game. Matt Kiefer had a solid 13 boards and 12 points for the Boilers, while nailing some timely treys. Purdue was just more disciplined and a balanced second half scoring attack just crushed the Gophers.

The Gophers continued to time and time again Saturday night leave a wide-open shooter for a triple. Dan Monson continued his mutiny of a down-low game and went to Spencer Tollackson only for a brief three minutes to begin the second half. In this 3-minute time framem I saw the best looks from the Gopher offense and we scored almost at will. Nevertheless we broke away from this pattern and decided to become a one-dimensional team. Tollackson played a very solid game and it was the only positive in the game for the Gophers.

In order for this team to win the Big Ten tournament, which is likely the only way they are going to make it to the NCAA tournament, is to play as a team. Vincent Grier needs to quit having delusions of grandeur. Dan Monson needs to realize that Tollackson can score on the block and has a great eye for the open man. Dan Coleman and Rico Tucker need to wake up and take a shot selection class. Most importantly the Gophers need to keep up their intensity and continue to create turnovers while developing some sort of offensive game plan. This team has the talent to be an alright team but just lacks the cohesion and discipline.